


ghosts haunt the most wretched of souls

by PsychicBananaSplit



Series: dreary and cloudy days [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anorexia, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Depression, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Eating Disorders, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Marks, Prophetic Dreams, References to Depression, Scars, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Acceptance, Self-Destruction, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Separation Anxiety, Social Anxiety, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Therapy, Waffles, What Have I Done, What Was I Thinking?, what good story doesn't have therapy?, what good story doesn't have waffles?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-02-10 15:56:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychicBananaSplit/pseuds/PsychicBananaSplit
Summary: Klaus and Ben have such obvious issues, that they don’t try to hide it. What they do hide, however, is the aftermath issues after those ones.





	1. anxiety

**Author's Note:**

> i've been rewatching gotham and lucifer this past week, and i'm busy with moving, so i really shouldn't be doing that or this but w h a t e v er.  
> anyway, i'm really, terribly sorry for the delay in content release. 
> 
> Julia Michaels - Anxiety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q33DvcjXA7M

The mirror is something that Ben avoids like the plague. Not all mirrors, like the rear-view reflectors in the car. Those are important. But, the tall slab of glass and wood in his and Klaus’ new apartment, he can do without. It’s a nuisance; it wakes him up in the morning, because of the unfortunate position they put it at and the even more unfortunate position he sleeps in, the sunlight reflects off of it and directly into his eyes.

When he looks in it, he seems to zoom in on all the unattractive attributes of himself. The slight roll of fat around his hips that he’s gained from eating after such a long time, the long shadows under his eyes, his scarred wrists and legs and stomach, self-induced.

Those are some of the worst.

And then, to top it all off: stretch marks. Literally, everywhere. His thighs, his hips, the sides of his belly, little ones skirting around jawline. He _hates_ them.

 _Hates_ them.

Some were old, everlasting, like the ones around his jaw after losing his baby-face, and the ones around his stomach. But the marks on his legs? They were new to him. Foreign, and not the good, attractive kind. The ugly monster under the bed rearing it’s hideous head to look you straight in the eyes with malicious, orange irises.

It’s not only the bedroom mirror; it’s everywhere. The bathroom, the top of the sink. In public bathrooms, he gets a glance at his face, and he has to turn away without having a panic attack in the middle of the mall. When he sees the sleeves of his leather jacket riding up and revealing his self-harm, his _weakness,_ his _pathetic sob-story,_ she shoves them back down to avoid crying in public.

It’s no use, though. Sometimes he makes it through the day. Sometimes, however, he has to grab Klaus away from Diego and Vanya and Allison and at some times Five just to say that he _can’t,_ he just _can’t,_ and that he _needs to go_ **_home._ ** That he can’t breath, or that he can’t see, or that he _can’t stop scratching his arms,_ **_stop that!_ **

Ben’s just, really fucking sad. And tired. Exhausted and depressed. Stressed and angry. Sometimes he wants to cry and be held in Klaus’ arms, hug him, kiss him, make him feel _corporeal,_ make him feel _alive._ He’s _alive._ Sometimes, he wants to lie in bed and just stare at the wall with blank eyes, he wants to stay there for the whole day and tell everybody to _leave him the_ **_fuck_ ** _alone._

He’s just _really_ **_fucking_ ** _sad_ lately.

Really fucking _sad_ is one way to put it, anyway.

Klaus makes it better, really. Bearable, at the very least. Better, the very most. His twinkling eyes and his smile and his hair and his fingers and his neck and his legs and his--well, you get the point. He makes it _better._ Bearable.

Klaus gets really fucking sad, too. Some days, he can’t get out of the bed in the morning, and can’t do anything but wrap himself in the sheets and shout at people through the door. Some days he wants Ben to hold him, to hug him, to kiss him, to remind him that _he’s_ alive. Because he’s died, too. Millions of times. Overdoses to beatings to starvation to cutting to Vietnam. He got shot, he got raped, he got thrown into a rave and died trying to save his brother and had a talk with _God._

Klaus had gone through so much more than Ben, so why was he really _fucking_ sad?

His stomach won’t stop grumbling with Them, the light was extremely bright today shining into his eyes, he feels like all of his scars and marks and blemishes and his _hideousness_ is loud enough to scream to the whole world, and, most of all, they don’t have flour. No flour means no waffles.

Going off to a great start.

Ben woke up at eight-something to find that the left side of his bed was empty, but still warm, which probably means that Klaus woke up extra early to cook breakfast in his pyjamas, of which consisted of one of Ben’s loose shirts, a rare pair of Ben’s boxers, and one of his hoodies since it was winter and they are trying to save money by keeping the heat at sixty, and some of the cold comes in from the bathroom, the coldest room. Which just so happened to be right in their room.

Ben shivered and stepped out of bed, getting into a sitting position on the mattress. He stared into the light peering it’s way through the window, lighting his face to a golden-yellow-orange and reflecting off of his greasy-ass hair. The sun shone almost obnoxiously into his eyes, but the fall-stained leaves blacked it out for a second. It was a Saturday, so neither of them had work. Wonderful. But Ben was still in a foul mood. He had barely slept last night, his mind had wandered to the Bad Parts, telling him horrible things and making him stay awake through most of it.

He lazily grabbed a random shirt and some skinny jeans--from his drawers. Klaus’ were too tight on him. He tried not to look in the mirror as he changed, pulling his pants on with no problem and then struggling through getting his shirt on, as he had taken an accidental glance over at it’s direction. Light and dark stretch marks bounced up and down on his skin, purple-red-blue against his tan skin, and he couldn’t look away, scrutinizing every piece of him like a child’s art project given to a professional artist. Like a failed math test being given to a teacher, checking off every wrong answer. Stretch marks, check.

His scars on his stomach, faded from time and solidness alone, had been caused by Them. They had ripped him open mercilessly, and God took pity on both him and Klaus, and decided only to leave him merely scars of what happened that day. Savage lines etched into him for eternity, wide, porcelain tears in the once-darker flesh, white-pink and tender to the touch. If you look at them close enough, you can see little baby-blue lines making their way from the middle of them to the outside, just a millimeter long. Maybe less, even.

The scars themselves, though, they were _monsters._ Long, thick, uninterrupted strands, abrupt and random across his stomach. The longest went from the left side of his chest, across his heart, to the bottom right corner of his torso, snaking it’s way around the taught flesh and carved lines of his abs. The others wound their way around them in no certain pattern, curling around his stomach to his back in a mock of a hug, winding their ways down his belly and vanished into the V-shape of the front of his pants.

Pity scars, check.

He was wanting more sleep by the time he had tugged on his inseparable leather jacket, his eyelids sinking and his brain spiraling it’s way into a deeper fit, a deeper pit of depression. Anxiety churned in his stomach along with Them for the day ahead. It wouldn’t even be that bad; staying home, watching some TV, a visit from their sibling(s).

Guess he’d just have to deal with it, then.

Klaus was always breathtakingly beautiful, especially in the morning. His hair, messed and ultra-curled from the previous night, would shine-through a golden brown from the morning light. His eyes would be bright, brighter than they ever would be, the grass green falling into line with the forest-y paint of the walls and the dark, dark brown of the floors in the kitchen. His skin would sheen with a glow, either sweat or natural light, pale and smooth. Dark eyelashes dusting his cheeks lightly. Klaus’ face is tall, with sharp cheekbones and an even sharper jawline. His lips easily compared to a flower; rosy, pink, but thin. Maybe a pink daisy, or a pink dahlia. His neck is long and thin, like the rest of his body, not offering much to his wiry muscles but instead to his waist and his ass, giving it the effect that it’s larger in comparison to the rest of his body. Enough talking about Klaus’ ass, though.

Ben walks in the kitchen and finds Klaus at the stove, surely enough, wearing a hoodie and a pair of Ben’s underwear. He grins, charming and sweet.

“Making omelettes.” He must’ve seen the depressed look on Ben’s face, and he transfers the spatula in his right hand to his left and gently rubs his arm, smiling at him with a softer look, going from cheeky to reassuring. “It’s going to be a good day, Ben. Remember,” he says, and Ben finishes his sentence in a weak, early-morning voice.

“One day at a time.” Klaus smiles and flips the omelette.

Ben knows it’s killing him, having to face eating again. He’s recently discovered Klaus’ eating habits, after not asking about the restricted eating and the sudden diets and the trips to the bathroom that were beginning to be more frequent. If ‘recently’ means seven months ago, then, yeah, recently. Ever since then, Ben has been taking more care to watch over him, watch his legs and his belly and his cheeks to see if they got any more thinner than they already were. To see if he gets more scrapes and cuts and bruises than ever, or if he starts to act distant and wallow about in their apartment more often, accusing himself of being sick and taking off work and spending the entire day over the toilet bowl and puking his guts out.

Allison probably understands more than anybody about it. The movie industry had laid a heavy weight on her, and took her down with it into a hole of self-hate and she, too, started these habits to make herself feel better about herself, when in reality she was just making it worse. She helps Klaus, and at times helps Ben know a little more about…...disordered eating. He’s still unsure around the topic, never, _ever_ tip-toeing around it but never knowing how to bring it up into a conversation casually.

He caresses Klaus’ shoulder lovingly and hugs him from behind, closing his eyes and trying to forget the scars and the stretch marks, pushing them down, swallowing them whole and preferring to take care of Klaus instead of soak in his self-pity. He brushes his nose over Klaus’ neck, tickling him and making him laugh the sweet song of a laugh that Ben can never get enough of, and it brightens his day up somewhat.

 

Klaus stared at the traitorous mess of eggs on his plate, poking them with the spear of his fork distastefully. His mouth was uncomfortably dry, his palms uncomfortably sweaty, and, god, he really needed to eat, but he just _couldn’t._

**Fatty.**

His eyes travel from his plate to the table, a blank stare meeting blank, markless wood. He knows Ben is talking to him, but he can’t seem to hear anything over the ringing, the blood rush behind his ears.

**Pig.**

He goes stiff, his arm jerking to his lap away from the gleaming fork. His stomach turns somersaults and he suddenly feels light-headed, blinking a few times. His arm is numb, his whole body is numb, in fact.

**Greedy slut. Gluttonous whore. Filthy bitch.**

While he was sitting in the loud silence, Ben must’ve finished his omelette and put his plate in the sink as he was standing in front of Klaus and calling his name.

“Klaus?” He asked anxiously, wringing his hands together in a nervous tick that he never shook himself from after his teenage years. Klaus blinks and nods his head, pushing the plate of cold eggs away from him to lay his forehead on the table tiredly. His spine painfully arched in on itself as he did the same, pulling his arms farther into his sunken-in stomach and closing his sunken-in eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He didn’t think Ben heard him, but he had, and bent down to hug him in the creaky chair. “I’m sorry, I just can’t, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” It was almost as if he was trying to tell himself that instead of Ben.

“It’s not your fault,” Ben started, shoving his face into Klaus’ beautiful, _beautiful_ hair, sliding his hands along his _beautiful_ skin and sighed. “It’s not your fault, Klaus. Really.”

 

It went on like for about the whole day, little bites of crackers and apple sauce and whatever Klaus thought he could stomach, practically being spoonfed to him by Ben. They finished a show; The Magicians. And started a show; Lucifer. Just from the first few episodes, they found that Lucifer and Amenadiel have a relationship akin to Klaus and Diego respectfully, and that Trixie is a savage. Ben’s never seen Klaus laugh so much during one of the Bad Days in….forever. He as well started smiling and chuckling a little during the funny moments, and soon forgot about the churning in his stomach.

Later on in the afternoon, Ben answered the phone to Vanya saying that she, with the others, would be arriving that evening, and Ben glanced over at Klaus’ sleeping figure on the couch with concern.

“Sure thing, Vanya. Yeah, yeah, he’s just a little tired, that’s all.” That was a lie. Klaus wasn’t just tired, he was fucking exhausted. He hasn’t eaten all day, and, from what Ben knows, he didn’t sleep either. “Yeah. He’s fine. Okay, see you then.” He hangs the phone back onto the wall and looks over at the lump on the couch cushions, curled up into a burrito and sleeping soundly, the black shadows under his eyes, around his gaunt face, fading sluggishly.

Ben can’t help himself when he crawls beside him and snuggles into the crook of his neck. Just, really _fucking_ tired.

 

_Ben tried. He really tried to get Klaus away from the razors, the scissors, the knives._

_He didn’t stop to think about supervising him in the bathtub._

_His limp, floating form in the tub was as pale as a ghost and as cold as one, too. Something that Ben should know. His hand balancing on the side was grasping onto nothing, a claw pointed up to the sky, the blood under his fingernails drying._

_But the blood._

_It stained the water, and the white tub, and the white floors, and the white skin. It spread across his chest and arms and legs, long gashes traveling all over his body. His neck was torn jaggedly, but it didn’t bleed as much as the reopened scars on his wrists._


	2. in your dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares, family meetings and wine shenanigans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm currently posting this in the new house. 
> 
> Dark Dark Dark - In Your Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH2ofwi71Og

Ben opens his eyes to a clear blue sky full of clouds. Standing up, he looks around, perplexed. It was just the afternoon a little while ago, wasn’t it? Oh, never-mind, just go with it, he thinks. 

He walks in whatever direction he’s walking in. Forwards, backwards, sideways, he doesn’t know quite yet. Fuck, he could be flying on his feet for all he knows. He looks around, and only faintly notices that the trees are an unnatural shade of green, that the sky is unnervingly bright, that the clouds rolling in from the south? North? East? West? Are getting steadily darker.

He looks down at the grass beneath his feet, swallowing his toes in the weedy embrace. Ben’s stick-ish limbs are nearly translucent compared to the dark green. He holds his hands up and looks at the tan, mark-less skin. No scars, no scratches. Nothing. Ecstatic, he rolls up the hem of his shirt and gets a glimpse of his waist. No stretch marks. He begins to pull it up the rest of the way, but looks down at the ground once again.

Terror fills all his senses as the grass starts to wind up his legs, crawling, trapping him in their snare, pulling him down into the earthy soil. Ben feels his first few toes curl into the dirt and starts to wonder if it’s even  _ dirt.  _ It’s black and muddy and sticky and  _ oh god,  _ where did the time go, because he’s knee-deep in the stuff and he can’t get out. 

His stomach does a weird flip and he shoves the shirt off of his shoulders, but he doesn’t even see that the shirt isn’t his. 

His stomach ripples, dancing in waves across his vision and he chokes on vomit down deep in his throat, holding his mouth closed as the creatures inhabiting him poke out, slithering down into the not-dirt and dying faster than they get down there. The stench of flesh and vegetation rotting attacks his nose and he wrenches his hand away from his mouth to vomit, but instead of chunky, half-digested remains of his lunch, little white insects crawl out and fall, a drastic contrast to the dark earth. Little square bugs that have miniscule legs, already digging into the ground and sprouting into plants with teeth, snapping at him. He feels one of his own molars fall out with his tongue and sees another bug falling on the grass at the same time and he realizes that the insects are  _ his teeth. _

Six, eight, ten-legged teeth bugs creep all over him, eating his flesh, blinking at him with beady black blank eyes, thousands, millions,  _ billions  _ of them. Who knew he had so much teeth? He brushes them off, frantic, yelling for help and he makes a mistake.

Ben looks down at his body and screams, an ugly scream, loud and frightening to him. High-pitched, almost an iconic woman’s scream in horror movies, only worse. It echoes around the suspiciously bright surroundings that are becoming darker, bouncing back into his ears and he hears himself scream as his  _ stomach splits in two. _

More sharp needle teeth emerge from a hole in his torso, stretching wide and open, a mouth with teeth and a long, lolling tongue and a bottomless pit of a gullet, endless, endless, eating everything, the people,  _ himself. _

The hideous scream comes back, but this time, it’s from the mouth in the middle of his abdomen.

**_“_ ** **_Ben_ ** **_,”_ ** They screech, squirming around in his stomach, hungrily growling for  _ more.  _ They sound like multiple voices, the voices of the men and women and children They killed. They haunt Ben, in the same way that the ghosts do to Klaus.

**_“_ ** **_Ben._ ** **_”_ **

**_“Ben!”_ **

_ “Ben. Ben!” _

“Ben!”

 

Ben lurches away from the couch, shivering and sweating at the same time. The apartment is crowded with his siblings; Vanya, Allison and Klaus right beside him, looking on in varying stages of worry, possibly panic. Allison looks beautiful as always, brown-skinned and brown-eyed, her curly, light hair cascading down her back in waves. Vanya, who, with her basically newfound emotions, has been exploring self-expression, dying the ends of her hair indigo and letting it down from her ponytail once in a while. Her dark eyes are wide with worry, staring at him keenly. Her jacket is held in one hand and a glass of water being given to him is in the other.

“Here.” She says, and he grasps onto the glass tightly, not taking a drink for the irrational fear of his teeth falling out and eating his skin. The cup is cool against his heated hands.

He glances to the side to find that the rest are sitting awkwardly towards the back, save Five, who looks just as suave as always. He's dressed in a pair of jeans and a graphic tee that reads “MATH: the only place where people buy 60 watermelons and no-one wonders why”, and it almost makes Ben laugh. Diego changed from his normal attire and dressed like a normal person for once, basic shirt, jeans and jacket. Luther, though, didn’t change, but seemed to have less layers on than last time he’s seen him. 

“Hey there, Benji.” He looks over at Klaus and notices that the bags under his eyes had gotten darker, despite sleeping just moments ago. “Some nightmare, huh?”

Ben nodded, regaining the ability to open his mouth and taking a sip of the crisp, clear water. “Yeah, it was,” his dry, gritty voice pauses as he searches for something to describe the dream. “Not good.” Is what he comes up with.

Vanya mutters something under her breath and both her and Allison chuckle, leading on the night going on as usual.

 

“Bye, guys.”

Five was the last to leave, giving Klaus and Ben a queer stare before pulling the latter aside to talk in the shadowed corner.

“Take care of him, okay? He doesn’t seem too good.” Ben caught it, too. The gazes at nothing and the staring into space. After a year of being sober he vowed that he wouldn’t go over two bottles of wine  _ per year  _ (which is just pure torture, Five thinks, and Ben agrees), and he has very nearly met that promise tonight, downing one that Allison had towed along and almost an entire one in their own pantry.

The ex-assassin turns away slightly, but then puts a hand on his shoulder stiffly. “And, trust me, I know some things about PTSD. Call me if _you or_ _him_ need any help.”

It takes Ben a second to realize that he’s referring to the nightmare, but by then Five has already gone out the door. 

“Hey there, Benny Boy,” Klaus drones, his dazed eyes traveling everywhere at once, and he sips from the almost-empty bottle in his hand. Ben sighs.

“Alright, come on, let’s go to bed.” Knowing Klaus is probably too drunk to walk straight (staying sober for about three years does that to a person; they become lightweights), he picks him up bridal-style after pulling the dark bottle from his grip, alcohol sloshing around inside with sickeningly wet noises that Ben never noticed until now. He feels slightly sick.

“Hey, I wasn’t done with that!” Klaus whines, throwing his head back and attempting to kick Ben in the arm before quitting and falling lax. His body shuts down and he goes to sleep before they make it to the bedroom, and Ben easily prefers the talking over the quiet, but it’s nice to have some of it once in a while.

He tries to ignore the slack feel of the body in his arms and decides to focus on his face instead, setting him down and shimmying Klaus out of the jeans the best he could. He shoves his long,  _ too  _ thin legs into a spare pair of sweatpants and throws a discarded hoodie on his upper half. Ben changes his outfit as well and slides into the bed, his chilly, goose-bumped flesh brushing against a bare area of Klaus’, causing him to shuffle around and huddle into himself and around Ben’s hoodie. In the midst of his sleep, he inhales in Ben’s scent deeply, brown sugar and cinnamon and a hint of something else, something foresty--always reminded him of autumn--before sighing.

Ben wraps his arms around Klaus and immediately slipped into a dreamless sleep.

 

Klaus woke up to his and someone else’s overheated body tangled together, himself stuck in a pod of Ben’s embrace.

He barely has a second of awareness before being hit with a mind-splitting headache, groaning and shoving his face back into the indented pillow. Ben lets out a deep breath and scrunches his eyebrows together, pulling Klaus tighter against his torso. “Don’ wake ‘p. Stay.” 

Half asleep already, Klaus peers at the analog clock hanging on the wall wearily. 

It reads that it’s around six in the fucking morning, he quotes, and they both go back to sleep without much difficulty.

 

_ “Klaus, I-I, I,” fear laced Ben’s voice, the phone in his hand shaking. The Horrors inside him thrashed about in agony from the amount of pills he ingested, his throat burning from hacking an unhealthy amount of blood. “I mess-messed up. I messed up, please, help me, please.” _

_ The sound of Klaus’ voice on the other line was overshadowed by a rough bout of coughing, his stomach tensed up from crying tightened more around Them and he whimpered from the stabbing pains in his body. Everywhere. It burned. His veins were filled with lava, his brain melting out of his head. He couldn’t scream, his throat was too stuffed-up from sticky gore. _

_ “Ben. Stay there.” He sounded very calm in this situation. Ben didn’t know how he couldn’t possibly lose his head with anxiety. “Stay calm, okay? I’m going to call an ambulance, okay? Hold on.” _

_ The line went dead, and Ben almost had a heart attack before he came back on.  _

 


End file.
